Daddy's Little Girl
by Vengeance on a Dark Horse
Summary: TWO-SHOT. The Crescent Wolf Jackson's son makes the next big step and asks his high school sweetheart to homecoming. Miss Esther Marshall-Mikaelson agrees – on one condition: "You have to get Daddy's permission." And that's how Jackson, Jr. first met the King of New Orleans…


**Daddy's Little Girl**

To every rule there is an exception. To every woman there is a rule. The trick, then, is in becoming the exception to that one woman's one rule.

Jackie was not so fortunate.

"Sooo…" Esther drawled, twirling a lock of her bronze hair between her fingers. Her bright eyes were on him intently, sparkling green at one angle and blue at another as Jackie shifted nervously in his seat.

Of all the places he could have chosen, he chose this. It was on account of his friends whose endless questions about it stuck his head in the clouds all day. He could think of nothing else, and he had to do it now, right outside the school gym exit, right here at picnic table, right under the tree where all the birds were squawking.

The cacophony did wonders to his courage – truly. He found himself wide-eyed, gazing into her hazel eyes, saying nothing.

"Um, Jack?" Esther leaned forward, grazing her hands against the plastic picnic table until her glittered fingernails rested upon his hands. His palms were drenched with sweat, so he recoiled instantly, burying his hands beneath the table.

"What's wrong?" Esther cocked her head with worry, "What did you want to talk about? Are you in trouble?"

Jackie forced a cough. To hell with it!

"Will _you_," his voice cracked, "go out with me?"

Esther grinned toothily, "What?"

"Homecoming," Jackie said curtly, with a waft of his hands, "It's Friday."

Esther grinned a little more toothily, "Yeaaah?"

"Well," Jackie continued, with another throw of his hands, "Yeah, you wanna come with?"

There was a pause. The birds squawked. Leaves rustled as a squirrel scrambled down a branch. The whole tree shook and the birds zipped every which way, abandoning the tree in red alert.

_An omen._

"With me, that is," Jackie added quickly after the birds left, "Come with me – well, go with me, that is, yeah…"

Esther's face was nothing more than one gargantuan smile by now, her cheeks all balled up, and her nose all wrinkled to make room for her fulsome lips, plastered over with pink lip-gloss.

"Ye—"

But then in an instant, as quick as a light, it snuffed out. Her face went blank.

"Wait," she said, stroking her chin, "It's the 13th on Friday, right?"

Jackie glanced up at the sky, as though it were written in the clouds, and then looked back down.

"Yeah, I think," he said.

_Another omen._

"Hmm," Esther hummed, pulling out a phone from her skinny jeans and clicking through until she gave a nod, "I thought so. Me and my dad, we kind of have an agreement, you know? One Friday a month – just the two of us. And I think that Friday, it's _our _day."

Jackie sucked in his lips, biting at the loose skin. _Our _day, she said, _ours_. That pronoun was so brim with meaning it ate at him.

"Well…" he stammered, "It's homecoming, yeah? I'm sure he'd, you know, make an exception."

Esther snorted a laugh and gave a wide wage of her head.

"Daddy doesn't make exceptions…"

_Daddy_, she said, _Daddy. _Jackie started gnawing on that bottom lip.

"You could…give him a call?"

Esther tilted her head, a light bulb brightening in her eyes, as if she had never considered it. Then with a click of her phone she brought the speaker to her ear.

"Oh, well you don't have to do it now," Jackie urged, waving his hands frantically, "Not if he's busy!"

Esther gave a massive shrug of her shoulders so that the long waves of her hair fell off her shoulder and rolled down her back, flashing a brassy gold in the sunlight.

"Don't worry about it!" she said, and then her whole body perked up instantly at the sound of a voice through the phone, "_Daddy?!_"

There was a muffled coo through the phone.

"Mhm!" Esther gave a cheerful nod, twirling her hair through her fingers again, "What?! Cool! That's awesome!"

The cooing cooed on – more so than the birds that had migrated over three trees down.

"Yeah, that's no problem, but, _Daddy?_" Esther's voice went up an octave; her lips puckered; her cheeks puffed out, "I was wondering…you know what Friday is right?"

A cheerful chatter on the other end…

"Right – but, um, you know, I just realized it's _also _homecoming on Friday…well, I know I said I didn't, but I kind of do now, maybe?"

A pause. A brief mumbling.

"Jack— you know, Mom's friend Jackson?" Esther said, bringing the end of her hair to her mouth and sucking on it without realizing it, "Yeah, Jack is his."

There was an energetic grumbling.

"Ha ha!" Esther rolled her eyes with a devilish grin, "I'll keep that in mind, Daddy!"

Esther raised a brow suddenly.

"Really?" she said, intrigued, "Okaaaay, I guess it's only fair…alright…Well, I gotta go. Mmkay. Love you, too!"

She hung up and put the phone on the table.

Jackie was drilling a hole through her at that point, dying of the suspense.

"Well?" he squeaked, "What is it?"

Esther pinched her lips together, "He said he can cancel it but…"

"But what?"

"But you kind of have to go and get his permission to take me out first?" she said in a question.

Jackie's mouth fell open, but not a word came out.

To every woman there is a rule.


End file.
